So much winning!

Last Tuesday, Democrats just couldn’t stop winning.

Abigail Spanberger became the first female governor in Virginia’s history. The New Jersey governor’s race looked to be close, but in the end it wasn’t — Mikie Sherrill won by double digits. Zohran Mamdani became New York City’s first Muslim mayor. In California, Gavin Newsom’s redistricting Proposition 50 passed with almost 64% of the vote.

In both Virginia and New Jersey, Latino voters who went for Trump in 2024 swung hard to the left. Trump’s economic policies have not brought prices down, and mass deportation efforts have separated families and made targets of US citizens just for speaking Spanish. (NYT, ABC News)

But what about the Dems caving on the shutdown?

Did they cave, though? Lots of opinions on this, but here’s one worth considering — maybe they’d done the best they could with the cards they held. Public sentiment stayed with Democrats through the fantastically successful elections.

Here’s what Democrats negotiated:

• Government funding at current levels through the end of January
• Most federal workers (including 4K who were fired) can go back to work and get paid. No one can be fired before January 30.
• Military construction, Veterans Affairs, and Agriculture funded through next September. SNAP falls under Agriculture, so it’s safe for ten months.
• Protections for the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which monitors how presidents spend taxpayer dollars.
• The Senate votes on ACA subsidies in November or December.

The ACA vote could go one of three ways: Republicans vote to continue the subsidies — yay! They vote against this, or Sen. Thune refuses to hold the promised vote. The latter two options make it abundantly clear that Republicans are the ones who don’t want people to be able to afford health care — a weapon in 2026 elections.

If there’s no budget bill by the end of January, Democrats can pick up the fight again, with a better hand.

Now there’s pressure on House Speaker Mike Johnson to open the House — and finally seat Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ), bringing the Epstein files bill to the floor for a vote. If he doesn’t open the house, he invites the accusation that Republicans are for protecting sexual predators and against feeding children. (electoral-vote.com)

And a bonus from the Supremes

SCOTUS rejected an appeal from Kim Davis, who as Kentucky county clerk refused to issue same-sex marriage licenses after the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision. Davis wanted the court to overturn that decision as part of her appeal of the case in which she was ordered to pay compensation to a couple whose marriage license she refused to provide.

For once, SCOTUS did the obviously right thing, and marriage between people of the same sex is safe — for now. (USA Today)